


i could make you need me all the time

by philliam



Series: make it holy [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Justice Rank 8 Spoilers, M/M, P5R Spoilers, new semester spoilers, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:47:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25135633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philliam/pseuds/philliam
Summary: Akechi is counting numbered days, preparing himself for the end. Akira being himself doesn't help.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: make it holy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1811320
Comments: 4
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> will i ever leave them be and let them be happy?
> 
> who knows

* * *

Here is the thing: Akechi did not expect to get such a kick out of seeing the leader of the Phantom Thieves kneel in front of him with his nose bleeding and a purple bruise blossoming on his cheek.

The fight was brutal and mean. Loki has knocked a couple of times against a door Akechi refused to open even though Akira’s insufferable, mocking smile tested his patience over and over again. He’s out of breath, the fabric of his white jacket glued to his sweaty back and the dull pain in his shoulder throbs more and more. Copper fills his mouth; he wants to spit out the blood and swallows it instead. He feels sick.

“I really wish you weren’t such a disappointment to me,” Akechi snarls, surprised by how harsh and cold his voice is. Something flashes in Akira’s eyes as his head snaps up. Hurt is a pretty big, meaningful word, so instead Akechi settles for defiance and moves on, looking away quickly. Entangling gazes with Akira is confusing at best, dizzying at worst. He thought after spending so much time near him, sometimes on or under him, he’d be immune to Akira’s presence and any conflicting emotions following him like a noose around his neck. He hates being wrong.

Akira’s answer is an audible exhale. He sways a little as he raises to his feet and even though Akechi can’t remember what he did exactly, he’s holding one side and leans into the other, saying, “Seeing how this isn’t how you usually fight in the Metaverse, I call it cheating.”

Closing the distance between them, Akechi makes a sound that comes close to a laugh. He quickly covers it behind a cough. “Says the one with access to infinite Personas.” He joins Akira’s side and ducks under his arm to steady him. His body is like a furnace, radiating heat that sips right through Akechi’s clothes. He dips his fingers into Akira’s side, earning a soundless gasp he knows a little too well for comfort.

“You’re pretty strong with just one Persona.” Akira’s head hangs like a puppet’s lifeless body, its strings cut off. It makes his hair fall forward, thick locks obscuring his eyes. Akechi smells blood and sweat, and underneath that coffee and the lily washing powder he’s come to known as Akira’s natural scent. He turns his head away. “You don’t need anyone else than Robin Hood.”

Akechi simply smiles and digs his fingers deeper into Akira’s side where he’s sure a bruise stands against pale skin. Akira bites his lower lip. Loki’s scarlet grin flashes before his eyes, the pressure on his chest from a golden hoof that glints like the wicked edge of a knife. If Akira notices him stumble, it’s surely because of his extra weight and the overgrown railway, nothing else.

“You’re right, I don’t need more Personas. I can eradicate my enemies with just one.”

Loki snickers like a child that’s in on a secret with an adult, feeling rightfully included in shady business. Akechi ignores him, too occupied following the way back to the platform without tripping on bones.

Akira snorts. “Are you trying to pick a fight?”

“We just saw how that will end, no?”

Akira glares at him and Akechi wonders if he’s aware it’s the same look he wears every time he’s about to climb on his lap and leave dark hickeys all over his shoulders and neck. He thinks about how easy it is to lean down and silence that pretty mouth for good. He also thinks how easy everything would be if he’d wrap both hands around Akira’s neck and end it here and now, saving him time.

A vicious tug, a hard wall against his back and Akechi finds himself in the very same position as last evening. He tries to smile, but the adrenaline is still pounding in his blood and it comes out crooked and wrong. Akira is already on his knees, fumbling with the zipper of Akechi’s white pants.

“Someone is a sore loser,” he points out indulgently, one hand pressed against the black wall behind him, the other running through Akira’s soft hair, forming a loose fist.

They return to Kichijouji twenty minutes later, Akechi’s cheeks flushed and Akira’s hair sticking to all sides, but no one pays them attention save for a boy staring at Akira in awe like he’s just had a revelation—or rather an awakening. Akechi steps in his sight of line, a wide smile plastered on his face, but it feels all wrong as if someone stuck the donkey’s tail right on its eye.

“Well, should you demand a revanche, you’ll find me in Shibuya from now on,” he says and busies himself with studying his watch, pretending he has plans after this—show him that he’s nothing more than another business meeting between many others, just a scribble on a page that’s taken up by dozens other scribbles. Unimportant. Replaceable. Just the side character to an insignificant short story.

Akira, however, doesn’t seem to be in any hurry, kicking up some dust, his hands deep in his pockets as he shuffles around Akechi like a lonely puppy seeking comfort. He tolerates it for about twenty seconds. “Is there anything else?”

Movements halting, Akira stands still as a stone, his body tense with anticipation for something Akechi can’t name. It’s subtle but he sees his shoulders straightening out, his head hovering above Akechi’s—a phantom inch separating their heights.

“You tell me,” he says, adjusting his glasses. Akechi stares at the tip of his nose, remembering how it pressed against his cheek this morning. It looks sharp, just like the bridge, but he knows how soft Akira’s skin is. Those facts are irrelevant and useless, but they keep him awake at night just like the screaming and pleading voices of his ghosts, never shutting up. When they finally go silent, it’s always Akira’s voice he thinks of shortly before falling in deep, dreamless slumber. Right now, it asks, “What’s this duel really about?”

Akechi snaps back to attention, his control of his expression slipping just a little, but it’s enough to elicit a confused stare from Akira. “There really is no deep significance to it,” he says. “I’m simply interested in seeing all of your capabilities.” Capabilities, strengths, weaknesses. Anything that might give him an advantage.

“You want to see who will win between us,” Akira translates, shrugging. “Which is a weird way to assert dominance, but okay.”

Akechi wants to kiss him, right here, right now in front of all these faceless people. Instead he turns away, grip tight enough on his suitcase his hand cramps up. “If that’s all, I will hear from you later.”

He doesn’t come far. Akira’s hand is hot, leaving where it touches Akechi’s bare strip of skin between glove and the end of his sleeve burning. He whirls around—too fast, too sudden; too many prying eyes on them already whispering about what this means—Akechi tears himself out of his grasp so fast, a joint pops in his back.

Akira’s eyes widen, clear as windows. He takes a step away, arm dropping back to his side. Time halts, Akechi’s control of his expression completely gone. He has no idea what face he’s making; he can’t even read Akira’s. All he knows is if he doesn’t save this, he’ll give everything away; every minute spent being someone else was for nothing; his whole life wasted.

 _Don’t give anything away_ , whispers Loki into his right ear. _He’ll be dead by next week anyway._

 _Trust him_ , pleads Robin Hood into his left ear. _It does not have to end like that._

In unison, they say, _Be yourself_.

“Sorry, my bad.” Akira shoves his hands back inside his pockets quickly enough before Akechi can look at them. “Thought you had something there.”

“I see,” he says to the Liar. “Thank you. And do take care of that.” He nods towards Akira's bruise. “We wouldn't want your friends to worry too much.”

Akira nods, still too awkward, still too taken aback even though Akechi doesn’t really understand the reason. It’s frustrating, Akira is frustrating. Two more days, then everything will be over.

“Good night,” Akechi says. Akira’s reply is drowned in people talking, people laughing.

He wants this all to go away.


	2. Chapter 2

Lavenza is not what Akechi has expected. Not that he’s expected anything specific in the first place, but a little child with golden eyes, staring at him with such an intense gaze that he is the one looking away first, is new. Akira being too prying for his own good is nothing new though. He stays after everyone leaves the nurse’s room, leaning against a white wall between two areca palms while watching Akechi on his quest to find band-aids he doesn’t even need.

Nothing and everything changed after Christmas Eve.

They aren’t fooling around in Save Rooms anymore. No one buys their ‘Forgot something and have to go back’-trick because no one leaves Akira and him alone for even a second. Akira thinks it’s rude. Akechi doesn’t really care. If possible, he doesn’t want to see him at all.

“My sports uniform looks good on you,” Akira says. There’s a slight tilt to his voice Akechi’s heart always responds to with a little jolt—the eradicated-the-enemy-fashionably-tilt, the-I’m-your-rival-don’t-get-too-cocky-tilt, the post-orgasm-satisfied-tilt. Where once adrenaline shot through his body, only electricity remains that paralyses him.

It’s the first time his body simply shuts down instead of running or fighting, effectively betraying him.

Avoiding Akira is like trying to run away from a bee while wearing cologne that smells of pansies. It isn’t too evident in Maruki’s palace. Any slip-up means potentionally risking all their lives, so Akira approaches him for obligations only. Healing, consultation, strategy. Akechi lets him, always catching him staring at his ass though.

Everything gets trickier when they’re in the real world. There’s only so long Akechi can hide in his cold one-room apartment, emptied by Shido’s henchmen at some point during his disappearance in December, before a phone call or message summons him to meet with the rest. He does want to defeat Maruki. He does not want to achieve it by pretending to be friends.

“If you have time to simply stand there, why not use it to plan our next infiltration?” Akechi asks without looking back, pretending that rummaging through the cupboards requires his whole attention. He’s a man on a mission, adamant that if he only ignores Akira long enough, he’ll just lose interest like a child growing bored with their toys.

He underestimates him.

Again.

“Morgana and the rest have that covered.” Footsteps draw closer. Akechi’s body tenses into one hard, solid muscle. “I’m here because there’s something we need to talk about.”

“Is that so?” Akechi closes a cabinet door with a loud bang, marching to the other side of the room. “Because I have nothing to say to you.”

There are million things he wants, maybe _needs_ to say, but simply thinking about them closes Akechi’s throat off, choking him with this bitter taste of rotten glory and ruined dreams. He’d rather die than allow this weakness to take hold of him.

“Akechi.”

He ignores him, rummaging through a drawer that’s crammed full of snacks. No band-aids. He hates this place.

“Akechi.”

Dull pain throbs at the back of his head. He tells Robin Hood to make Loki stop, but silence in return reminds him that since the boiler room, Robin has been gone. It’s easy to forget that sometimes. It isn’t as easy falling asleep again after waking from a nightmare where he hears Robin’s atrocious screams still ringing in his head.

He tears through the next drawer, refusing to think about anything else except _band-aids_ , _band-aids_ , _band-aids_ , _what shitty nurse room doesn’t have band-aids_ —

“Goro.”

Akira is so close; he feels his warm breath on the back of his neck.

Fight, flight or stay to be devoured. Akechi barely turns his head, eyes creeping up slowly to Akira’s face. Being this close was never a problem before—Akechi has had enough time to count every single lash, black as spilt ink, cursing them curling like crescent moons and throwing long shadows over high, winged cheekbones he can draw with closed eyes on paper. This face is as familiar as his own. He’s seen it angry, laughing, frowning; wearing a wicked, cruel smile, contort in hot, all-consuming pleasure: slightly open mouth with pink, swollen lips, blushing, hot cheeks. Dead, empty eyes. Red, thick blood between slanted eyebrows.

In his nightmares, Akechi hears Robin’s scared screams in the boiler room, and sees Akira’s slack face slam on the prosecutor’s desk.

No. There really is nothing to say.

“Goro?” Akira’s voice is barely a whisper. “You’re shaking.”

If there is a time for his body to betray him, it isn’t now. Akechi turns away, his mission forgotten. Right now, he needs to get as far away from here as possible. Akechi never feared his mistakes to catch up to him some day, but Akira, alive and kicking Akira, proves him wrong over and over again. “If there’s nothing else, it’s time for me to go,” he says.

He shoves Akira out of his way, quickly pulling his hand back as if burnt by this simple touch. He manages to cross the room halfway before Akira’s voice makes him stop.

“Were you looking for this?”

He turns around. Akira is holding a partially opened package of band-aids, presenting them like bait to prey that doesn’t know any better. Akechi wants to bare his teeth.

“I’m not here to play games,” he hisses, stomping towards Akira who beelines towards him as well, approaching Akechi too fast. Two feet until they crash like stars and swallow everything. One foot until they collide like cars and explode into tiny, burning pieces. Before they set the room in flames, Akira halts.

“Good,” he says and takes Akechi’s wrist—far gentler than he’d expected or liked, and leads him to the sitting area near the door where he can see the exit so close and yet so far. “Because I’m not playing.”

Akechi clicks his tongue.

He drops begrudgingly into an armchair, folding one leg over the other and crossing his arms. Akira knees down in front of him, just a few inches away from his legs. It reminds Akechi of a similar image several months ago, only he was still acting for an audience that never cared about him in the first place, and Akira was wearing a tight, black latex cop uniform.

Only one of those things makes him want to go back to that time.

“Let me,” Akira says, holding out one hand to Akechi like a knight asking for allowance to kiss his maiden’s fair hand.

“I’m not a little kid,” Akechi hisses but it lacks its usual venom. Akira doesn’t pressure. Wordlessly, he waits, the inside of his palm lying open, vulnerable.

Akechi stares daggers at it, hoping it will simply disappear. When the result disappoints, he takes the easy route and slaps his hand in Akira’s. “Just hurry up.”

Akira hums. He’s inspecting Akechi’s hand, searching for the injury like a scientist looking for the answer of the afterlife. His hold is light like a feather, careful and hesitant, as if the universe granted him the honour to look after a priceless treasure that builds kingdoms and burns countries.

“Where do you need it?”

“I can do it on my own.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt your abilities.” Fumbling with the bandage, Akira pulls his eyebrows together in concentration, a little smile flirting with his lips. Akechi knows it, the everything-is-a-game-to-me-smile but this time stakes are too high for him to join. “But humour me. Now, where do I put it on?”

He glares at him. Seeing no way to win, he turns his hand, his palm fitting perfectly against Akira’s, showing the little, shallow cut on one finger.

Akira stares at it, very unimpressed. “Are you an actual child?”

Akechi pulls his hand away—too slow. Akira’s fingers latch around his wrist, holding him in place. “Wait, wait, I’m joking.”

“You’re not funny,” Akechi replies drily. He watches Akira put a bandage around his finger, smoothing it out with his thumb.

“This…” He digs his thumb slightly where the wound is, making it burn but Akechi doesn’t flinch. “… looks like a ring, doesn’t it?”

Akechi raises one eyebrow. “It doesn’t.”

“Like a wedding ring,” Akira continues as if he didn’t say anything. Akechi looks down at the band-aid around his ring finger. He feels too awake all of a sudden, yet extremely tired. Everything buzzes, from his head to his toes, and he can’t tell if it’s Maruki’s Actualized Happy World or Akira touching him or the fact that he should not be. He remains very still, like a corpse, and stares over Akira’s curly mop of hair at the mirror hanging at the opposite end of the room. Brown eyes stare back at him—unflinching, lifeless like the glassy eyes of a dead fish until he blinks and it’s just his normal, usual face.

“Don’t tell me you’re entertaining the absurd idea of marriage,” he mocks, a crooked smile cutting his mouth into two red lines. “What are you, a lonely housewife in her thirties?”

“What can I say, I’m a romantic at heart,” Akira answers. He isn’t smiling.

Akechi’s grin dies. “If you have time to think about something this foolish, then there will be no problem in securing the path to the treasure tomorrow, right?” His voice sounds weird to his own ears. He feels sick.

Finally, his hand is set free as Akira places it carefully on Akechi’s knee.

“You’re smart enough to figure out where I’m going with this conversation,” Akira says, rising to his feet. He seems a little absent minded, his eyes unfocused and thoughts far away from this room. “Think about my proposal.”

“Propo—” Akechi jumps to his feet, his ears buzzing with a swarm of angry bees. He’s so close to Akira, their chest almost touch. He smells it again: coffee, washing powder, sweat. No blood this time. It feels wrong. “I have no interest in entertaining this stupid idea.”

“Do you hate it because it’s a social construct and divorce is way too expensive,” Akira asks, his eyes snapping back to Akechi and focusing with too much determination in them on him. “Or is it the thought of living with someone that allows you to be vulnerable that scares you.”

_I’m not scared of anything_ , Akechi wants to say. What comes out instead is, “Why did you ask if you know the answer already?”

“Because I want to hear it from you. I want to know what you want.”

_What does Goro Akechi want?_ No one has asked him this before, so he’s taken aback a second, speechless. A lump grows in his throat, burning every time he swallows.

“I don’t want someone else to decide how I live my life,” he says eventually. Slowly, word for word so Akira understands that what makes Goro Akechi the person he is, is something he was never allowed to have in the first place and the crave for it now is like craving air underwater. “I don’t want to be someone’s puppet.”

Akira’s voice grows louder. “Then what _do_ you want?”

Akechi’s body shudders with rage. _I want to live_.

He turns around, blinking furiously against the burning in his eyes. “We’re done talking. You can contact me if there are important things we need to discuss. That’s what I want.”

There is no answer, but he knows he’s got his point across. Some people take Akira’s silence for what it is, when sometimes it speaks louder than his words. Right now, he feels it like a solid pressure against his skin, leaving dents and reshaping his body and he’s afraid to turn around and look in the mirror again.

Marriage.

Marriage with Akira Kurusu of all people.

What an absolutely stupid, horrendous idea. What a horrifying dream and scary hope to plant into someone whose soil is home to maggots and vermin that only know the taste of blood. Akechi takes that seed and hides it somewhere deep, deep inside his chest where the dirt hasn’t reached; an almost forgotten place that still loves toy guns and collects Phoenix Ranger Featherman stickers to put them on his bento lunch box.

That is the only part of himself he wishes Akira could get to know before the end as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there'll be a third part and i'm rlly looking forward to it
> 
> i'm trying to be more active on [twitter](https://twitter.com/mariya_mey), so come and check it out ♥


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